Growing up in a small farming village in southeastern Nigeria, Bhion Achimba was not supposed to become a writer. His family lacked the resources to send him to college, and […]
Books & Poetry
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Is Artificial Intelligence Going to Take Over Poetry?
Spoiler alert: No — at least, not yet
Questions about the promise and existential threat of artificial intelligence are everywhere these days. What can A.I. do? What should it do? As recently as last year, most of the […]
WRITERS
Kim Coleman Foote’s Art of Biomythography
The FAWC writing fellow explores the ‘muddiness’ of history and memory
“When you forget parts of a history, patterns repeat themselves,” says Kim Coleman Foote. “This goes for the great human tragedies as much as for intergenerational trauma within families.” Foote, […]
WRITERS
Finding Rhythm and Beauty in the Strange and Odd
Kieron Walquist brings a ‘queer, neurodivergent hillbilly perspective’ to his visceral poetry
Late at night, hearing the coyotes cry, Kieron Walquist watches as a red-tailed fox makes its rounds of the Fine Arts Work Center campus. When Walquist and the fox finally […]
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A Brief History of the Whale Fishery
On Provincetown, whaling, people, and poetry
I recently saw an exhibit on the second floor of the Provincetown library: a case alongside the Rose Dorothea containing a whaling harpoon and line, a few images, and a […]
WRITERS
Stories of Tradition and Modernity
Gothataone Moeng explores the tensions between the past and the present
It’s an exciting time for Fine Arts Work Center writing fellow Gothataone Moeng. Her first book, a collection of short stories set in her home country, was published earlier this […]
BOOKS
Barbara Bosworth Keeps an Eye on The Sea
Finding beauty reflected in texts and objects
One of Barbara Bosworth’s most prized possessions is a collection of bird eggs she inherited from her great-grandfather, who collected them in the wild, blew out their interiors, and saved […]
BOOKS
A Voyage Through the Ildarwood
A Provincetown writer creates a fantasy world for young adult readers
J.R.R. Tolkien grew up reading mythology and folk tales, which had a profound effect on the books he wrote as an adult. Fantasy author Neil Gaiman has cited Michael Moorcock’s […]
WRITERS
Hannah Perrin King Captures the Mundane and the Majestic
A poet finds inspiration in things that are ‘constantly coming undone at the seams’
Hannah Perrin King entered college with a foolproof plan: complete pre-med coursework, major in English, and become a doctor who writes prose in her spare time. But thanks to a […]
BOOKS
Our ‘Yacking’ Democratic Genius
In a new memoir, Robert Pinsky explains what made him a poet — and what makes America poetic
“One way or another, people have more poetry in them than you might think,” insists Robert Pinsky. In 2000, this conviction prompted Pinsky, then the United States Poet Laureate, to […]
WRITERS
Writing That Shows Us Who We Really Are
A ‘stubborn fan’ of the short story explores complicated and difficult inner lives
Writer and current Fine Arts Work Center fellow Willie Fitzgerald calls himself a “stubborn fan” of the short story. “Dedicated short story writers and readers tend to be fewer in […]
BOOKS
Angling for Social Change
Stephen Duncombe on how fishing can inspire the work of making the world a better place
When Stephen Duncombe started walking to the ponds and jetties of Cape Cod a few years ago, he didn’t plan on doing anything besides starting the long project of teaching […]
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Learning From Lichens
Susie Nielsen explores intuition and influence via a poem by Jane Hirshfield
In our thing-filled culture, our super-documented lives, what happens in the liminal spaces? What happens in those nothing-moments as we leave one place (either physically or mentally) and move toward […]
QUEER ‘I’
Mapp and Lucia and Me
From coastal England to the shores of Provincetown, some things never change
At first glance, it’s a postcard-perfect seaside town, brimming with music, theater, and art. Look closer, though, and you’ll see that beneath the quaint village veneer lies a hotbed of […]
BOOKS
More ‘Less’ May Be Just What We Need Right Now
The sequel to Andrew Sean Greer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is winter comfort reading
Escapism is a form of self-care, and self-care is a high priority right now for Provincetown residents facing months of winter. Good reads — like batteries, chocolate, moisturizer, and canned […]